Obama Administration Brings Back Streamlined Coal Mine Permits

[hatrack]

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Despite a promise to stop the practice, the Obama administration this week said it would resume allowing coal companies to obtain strip-mine permits through a streamlined process previously thrown out by a federal judge.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday reissued a collection of "general" permits, including one called "Nationwide Permit 21," or NWP 21, for surface coal mining.

Corps officials said they revised the permit so that valley fills generally can't be authorized through streamlined permits. They also limited the amount of stream that can be buried under such a permit to 300 linear feet.

However, the new NWP plan also allows local Corps of Engineers officials to waive the 300-foot limit if they conclude the mining proposal at issue will result in minimal impacts. Environmental groups had urged the corps not to take such an approach, saying it would amount to "an unacceptable retreat" from the administration's previous suspension of NWP 21.

EDIT

http://wvgazette.com/News/201202160210

[XemaSab]

1. .

[Nihil]

2. "Hope & Change" redux.

Looks like someone isn't bothered about the environmentalists votes this time around,
just the coal+gas+oil+nuclear+financial+insurance+armaments industries instead.

[PufPuf23]

3. POTUS Obama channels his inner Reagan. nt